The present invention refers to a roller bearing comprising two bearing rings, a number of roller elements provided between the bearing rings, and a cage or retainer for the roller elements whereby the retainer comprises a number of segments.
Roller retainers of this basic type are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,966,284, 4,056,293, 4,235,487 and 4,239,304. In these previously known designs the segments are mutually connected.
The present invention is applicable to roller bearings in general, but is mainly intended for use with spherical roller thrust bearings. Normally, spherical roller thrust bearings are manufactured with two different retainer designs, either with a retainer of pressed sheet-metal, or with a solid retainer which is guided by a sleeve mounted in the hole of the outer ring or shaft washer.
The present invention intends, when applied to spherical roller thrust bearings, to offer an alternative to the last-mentioned conventional retainer design. In that conventional design, pockets are bored in a solid retainer ring, which puts great demands on the machine equipment from operational and capacity aspects.
An object of the present invention is to provide a segmented retainer arrangement for large bearings which is relatively simple and inexpensive to produce.
Another object of the invention is to provide a segmented retainer arrangement, which can be given close tolerances at the contact points with the roller elements.
A further object of the invention is to provide a segmented retainer arrangement, in which a favorable force cooperation between the retainer and roller elements is obtained.
Another object of the invention is to provide a segmented retainer arrangement, in which contact between adjacent segments is avoided.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a segmented retainer arrangement, where the retainer construction holds together the set of rollers and the inner ring when the bearing is handled.